


What that tell you 'bout Death?

by localwitchgoblin



Series: There Existed an Addiction to Blood [2]
Category: Vampire: The Masquerade, World of Darkness (Games)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Campaign Interlude, Experimental Style, F/M, Freeform, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:01:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25432774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/localwitchgoblin/pseuds/localwitchgoblin
Summary: Adriel's got a complicated relationship with all things bad for him, whether he knows it or not.--this is a reposting of a chapter because i wanted to separate them into a series. thanks!
Relationships: Original Female Character(s)/Original Male Character(s), Original Female Malkavian Character(s)/Original Male Character(s)
Series: There Existed an Addiction to Blood [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1842109
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> new character, new pov, new style.

His shift ends in five hours. 

And, honestly, he's not sure it's worth it anymore. Only reason he keeps up appearances at this gas station is to have enough money for food and rent every month, but it barely covers that. The rest of his meager wages get stuffed in his mattress alongside his kit. Rainy day funds. Like it doesn't rain in Seattle every fucking day.

But, no, that's not the kind of guy he's supposed to be now. He's supposed to be getting better. Cande wants him to get better. _Lara_ wants him to get better. And blowing all his cash on drugs was hardly the definition of 'better.' Getting so high he can’t talk straight, and walking out into traffic, just to get it all over with and end the pain of existence? Also not the definition of better.

He does it for her. For the cold arms around his waist and the feeling of teeth sinking into his neck. For mismatched eyes that look at him and see him as a-- a person. A real, living being with thoughts and feelings. For the hand that strokes his hair when she’s not busy and he has withdrawals. For the small smile on her face when he’s a whole month clean-- a new record.

He does everything for _her._

So, Adriel slumps over against the counter and watches two bikers try to sneak beer out of the back cabinets. They're doing an awful job at it, laughing and looking around suspiciously like he’s invisible. Inconsequential. Like there aren't security cameras for that exact reason. 

First responders speed past the station, sirens wailing off into the distance. Smoke in the air and fires on the horizon, it reminds Adriel of the protests back during the summer. He watches them long enough to almost miss the bikers leaving through the front door. 

_"Hey!"_ he barks like a rabid dog, all teeth and no claws, "You two gotta pay for that!" 

The guys curse and try to run, tripping and crushing a six-pack on the floor. The two barely make it out to the parking lot by the time Adriel jumps the counter and grabs them by the collars of their jackets. 

"I am _not_ losing my job over you two," he snaps-- then one takes a swing at him. The shithead catches him in the mouth, his upper lip scraping against one of his teeth and splitting the skin of his scar again. Adriel’s grip doesn’t even loosen. Not even when the man throws a second punch, busting open his nose. 

The other guy drops the stolen goods into the snow-- beer and snacks, just petty shit-- and elbows him in the stomach. Apparently, neither of them realize that he’s taken worse beatings from better people, because they seem to think that will down him and try to make another run for it. Adriel reels back, choking one with the collar of his sweater while the other slips on the ice and falls back-first to the ground. 

“Whatever you two fucks wanna say, you can say it to the cops when they get here,” he bites, reaching for his phone. The one he choked slaps it out of his hand, and just as he’s about to protest, the man grabs his head and slams it into the wall.

Boom.

Stars.

He slides down the wall, feeling his head rattle around on his shoulders and his legs turn to jelly. Definitely got his bell rung. The stars in his vision haven’t even faded when the other gets up and throws a punch directly into his chin, throwing him flat on the ground.

They shout things he can’t even hear over the blood roaring in his ears. It doesn’t make much sense, and Adriel doesn’t care. All he can feel is the rush to his brain as they kick the shit out of him, the little firecrackers of pain as they bust him up. Broken nose, bloody lip, black eye. Bruised bones and cracked ribs. Eventually the beating slows and they scramble to pick up the things they stole, but Adriel grabs one of them by the ankle and trips him, laughing as the man eats shit on the pavement.

It’s stupid, but that actually makes him feel better about life for one small moment. He grins with bloody teeth, even when the guy kicks him in the face. Whether it’s the pain, the adrenaline, or the satisfaction of a petty win-- he’s not sure.

“I said, you can wait for the fucking cops, assholes,” he slurs as he crawls on the ground, blood dribbling into the snow. The cold numbs the pain, but only by a little bit, the ice biting into his skin through the thin company t-shirt. The biker still standing stomps on his hand, definitely breaking a few fingers under that heavy boot, and only then does he let go. 

They run down the street, sprinting faster than Adriel could hope to catch up to them with blood dripping down his throat, but he tries, at least, to catch up to them. He grabs his phone off the ground and slips it into his pocket, feeling the bones in his legs shift under the bruises painted onto his skin.

It’s a heady mix of panic, fear, and adrenaline that makes him follow and follow well. Down the street, past their bikes, into an alley. They wait for him there, picking up a brick and throwing it at him. It cracks against his shoulder.

God. He really is a junkie. Or a masochist. Because he just can’t stop smiling despite it all. 

The fight ends badly, of course. It’s two against one, and for all his experience with getting the shit beat out of him, it’s hardly clean and fair. They strike him with bricks and pipes and whatever else is on hand, eventually tossing him out onto the sidewalk. They step on him on their way to the bikes, and he feels the fight die in him like a starved little animal-- fading into nothingness out in the cold. 

The adrenaline fizzles out. He’s bruised, broken, and aching. People walking down the street step over and around him, barely paying him any mind. And for a hot, miserable minute, he just wants to grab his lighter and burn the city to the ground. See the whole place up in the same flames he saw earlier, matchstick under his tongue, sirens wailing around him, chaos in the streets--

But that’s not what he’s supposed to be. That was the drugs talking, the ones he stopped taking so long ago. That’s the coyote he saw as a kid-- gnawing its own leg off to escape the bear trap his father set outside their house. That’s his father himself, with his heavy fists and bourbon cold. And he told himself-- he promised himself-- he’d never be his father.

So, he gets up, like he always does, and dials Cande. And he hopes and he prays and he does what good little dogs do-- he goes to his master and begs for love. 

She doesn’t pick up, of course. Not for the first time, not for the last, but by the time he makes it back to the gas station, he wants to vomit. It might be the concussion, though. Or the bruises on his belly that ache with every breath. 

There's one or two people inside the station, waiting at the counter, and he sees Angeline just as she sees him. 

Angeline is a kind, older woman with hair bundled loosely at her neck. A punk in a past life, she has tattoos up to her neck and still keeps her piercings in, even if the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and the gradient of grey going down that ponytail makes her look more like a kindly grandmother than anything else. Her eyes widen and she steps around, greeting him with worried hands as he collapses through the front door. 

“Fucking hell, Adriel! I just thought you went to the bathroom, what happened!?" she frets, pressing fingers against his blackened eye. He winces a little, not at the pain but at the tone in her voice. She sounds ready to strangle him _and_ whoever did this to him at the same time.

He slurs something incoherent about thieves and bikers. He's not really sure what he's saying, actually; it's hard for him to even stay awake. Angeline seems to get the idea, though, and starts to pick his sorry ass off the floor. 

“Wha’bout the customers,” he mumbles into her shoulder as she all but carries him. Her arms are solid, strong-- despite, or because, of the track marks on in her elbows that have faded over the years. Or, maybe, he’s just that thin. He isn't sure.

Angeline looks back over her shoulder, “You guys got a problem with this?”

The two at the counter shake their heads, just as disturbed as Adriel would have never expected them to be. Customers usually don’t give a shit. Must be in a really bad way, then. One even pulls out their phone and offers to call for an ambulance.

He sees just how bad it is in the bathroom mirror. It’s like looking in a funhouse mirror, parts of him just _wrong ._ His left eye is almost swollen shut, a dark smudge in his fucked up reflection, and his nose is well and truly busted. The scar that bisects the corner of his mouth is barely visible under the blood and bruising, and he’s certain he’s missing a tooth-- he can feel a gap between his molars that wasn’t there before. 

“Shit, kid, they really did a number on you.” Angeline starts dabbing his cuts with a wet paper towel, steadying him with a firm hand when he starts to lean too far in the wrong direction, “Why the fuck didn’t you just let them go?”

“Didn’ wanna get fired,” he slurs out, and, fuck, he’s concussed. He can tell by the velvet feeling in his mouth and the steady thump-th-thump of his pulse up where his brain should be. 

“Josh wouldn’t--”

“At-will employment state.” 

“...Fuck, you’re right,” she sighs, pushing his hair out of his face so she can get a better look at him. She holds his face in her hands like a mother, her palms warm against his skin. She has similar hands to his own mother-- slender fingers, thin palms, soft but boney. Not even the knuckle tatts can hide how delicate they are. If he closes his eyes, he can almost pretend to be home again.

But that’s kinda pathetic for a 20-something that ran away from home, so he keeps them open, even when she dabs at the cut above his brow. 

“What’d they take?” she asks, “Anything from the register?”

“Snacks and beer,” he says, “No cash, no cigs. Didn’t wanna get Josh on my ass about lost stock. Just wanted to stop ‘em from lifting.” 

“And they beat the piss outta ya,” she sighs through her nose, “Fuckin’ jackasses. This city’s gone to shit since I was your age, I swear.” 

“Or it was always shit,” he points out, scrunching his face a bit to fight the itch of clotting wounds, “And you just didn’t see it.”

She scowls at him without any heat, but returns to cleaning him up. There’s not much she can do, really. The first-aid kit is for customers, and is mostly bandaids and a safety pin. Josh’d have a fit if they used any of it on themselves.

“Lift your shirt,” Angeline commands, once she’s washed his face of any excess blood. 

He snorts, even though it hurts, “Didn’t know you liked me that way, Angie.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, kid, you ain’t my type,” she says, scowling some more, “I prefer my smartasses to be less of the idiot persuasion. I’m just tryin’ to see if you need to go to the hospital.”

“I can’t afford the hospital, Angie, you know that,” but he lifts his shirt anyways, wincing at his thinness in the mirror. Only upside to being that skinny-- he knows which ribs are broken. He can see them.

“Jesus fucking Christ, kid, eat a cheeseburger sometime,” Angeline says, wiping some of the blood off his chest and sides. Some of the bruises seeped through the pores of his skin, leaving him looking even more mottled and sickly than before, “You look like a drug addict.”

“I _am_ a drug addict,” he snarks, then winces when he sees the look in her eye.

_“Thought you stopped.”_

“I did!” he scrambles, and though she looks nothing like his mother, he can’t help but see a resemblance anyways. Disappointment and everything, “I did stop. A month clean. Scout’s honor.”

Angeline is still giving him that look when his phone buzzes in his pocket. He fishes it out with his good hand-- clicking his tongue at the cracked screen, _assholes--_ and answers it without looking at the name.

“Yeah?”

“Adriel?” Cande says over the line. He nearly drops his phone, “Hey, what’s up? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, ‘m fine,” he lies, and he doesn’t even know why. Maybe to avoid the disappointment on her face when she sees how busted up he is, maybe it’s just habit, he’s not sure.

Angeline, for what it’s worth, takes his phone away immediately, nestling it between her ear and shoulder, “He got the shit beat outta him. Who’s this?”

There’s a long pause, before Angeline says, “Some people stole shit, and your boyfriend here tried to stop them. He’s in a bad way and needs someone to take him to the hospital.”

“I can’t _afford_ a hospital, Angie--” he tries, but she holds up a hand to silence him. 

“Yeah, it’s that bad. Cracked ribs, lotsa bruises, busted nose. He probably has a real bad concussion. You should get here quick,” she says, shifting a little to look him over as she speaks. There’s another small pause, “Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Got it, I’ll stick with him. See you soon.”

She hangs up. Adriel hasn’t felt this small and helpless in a long, long time.

“Why’d the fuck you do that, Angie?” he says without any heat. More of a whine, really, childish and pitiful just like he is. She gives him another look, brushing some hair out of her face as she sets the phone on the sink beside him.

“You look like you just got outta war zone, kid. And your pupils are blown to hell-- you could _die,_ y'know. You need to see a doctor. _Tonight_.” 

He doesn’t even have time to protest. She stands up and leads him out of the bathroom, dropping him down on a stool in the corner behind the counter. No way to escape, too tired to do so, he sits and scrolls through the apps on his phone while Angie deals with the customers.

Anytime he closes his eyes too long, he hears Angie take a step over to him, ready to shake him awake-- so the minutes pass agonizingly slow.

But his savior comes eventually. Cande stumbles through the front door, snowflakes stuck to her hair and the fleece of her jacket. He feels that chill again, the coldness that follows her even in the summertime-- the ghost of a frozen lake, swirling with something underneath. It screams _‘Danger!’_ and he presses his ear to it as if he’s listening for a heartbeat. 

She rushes behind the counter and presses cold hands to his face, soothing the bruises like no ice pack ever could. He leans into it and closes his eyes, barely listening to her hushed murmurs and rapid Spanish. He feels safe, now. Comfortable. Like he’s on the edge of a building, ready to jump.

His Angel of Death is near, holding him close, and that’s all that should ever matter. 

Cande bundles him up and drags him outside, barely pausing long enough to get his things. She pushes him into an 80s beater and buckles him up as though he can’t do it himself, taking control of the situation like she always does when he fucks up. It’d be irritating if it were anyone else. If he weren’t ready to curl up and die on the side of the road. 

They’re silent for a long time, listening to the hum of the engine and crunch of snow on the road. He feels the world beneath his feet swirl and go unsteady, rocking in time to the sway of the vehicle. Eventually, they pull up to a red light, and Cande finally pops the question.

“Who did this to you?”

“Just some fuckin’ bikers,” he mumbles, not looking at her.

“Did you know them?”

“No.”

“Do I know them?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Okay.”

“Okay….”

He yawns and leans his head back into the seat, bundling up in his coat. Why she’s asking, he has no idea, but he can hear the way she grips the steering wheel. Tight enough to make her hands sound like leather scraping against plastic.

“Adriel?” Cande asks, and he knows that tone in her voice. It’s the same one she used when she first told him she was a vampire. When she first fed on him, all those months ago.

“Mmm?”

“I’m leaving Seattle,” she says and if it were him behind the wheel he’d have slammed on the brakes. It isn’t, though, so he settles for bolting upright in his seat-- or, as much as he can with the pain he’s in. She turns a corner as they both gather their thoughts. 

He speaks first, asking, “When?” 

“Tomorrow. Maybe the day after,” she says, the tick-tick-tick of the blinker punctuating her words in an odd rhythm, “I… I want you to come with me. Will you?”

He feels the knots inside himself loosen. Relax. The relief is so palpable, he almost throws up. Or maybe that’s the concussion talking, he’s not sure. The world swims around him in a blur and all he can focus on is her.

“Yeah. Yeah, I will,” he promises, and is surprised by how much he means it, “Anywhere you go, I’ll follow.” 

She reaches out to grasp his hand, ice cold and soft, and gives it a squeeze, "Meet me at my apartment tomorrow. Lara's coming, too. I don't know where we're going, but it'll be away from here."

He nods, closes his eyes, and drifts off, the weight on his shoulders too much to bear. 

Somewhere between the waking world and sleep, he hears music. It’s distant music that numbs him more than the ice and cold; some song on the radio he can’t recognize. Then, silence. Silence that not even the clamor of the outside world can pierce. Silence that scares him, but welcomes him home at the same--

Cande turns into a parking lot and cuts the engine. He cracks an eye open long enough to catch a flash of metal, and he barely registers what comes next. She slashes her wrist open, the wound slow to bleed, and touches the back of his head with her other hand to press her wrist to his mouth. 

He reels back as soon as it happens, panic taking him before anything else can. He doesn’t understand what she’s doing-- committing suicide? Getting ready to kill him? Right in front of him in this shitty parking lot and making him look at it while she--

But then the blood slips past his lips and he stills like a corpse tossed into an open grave. 

“Drink it up,” she commands-- or, suggests, really. Gentle as she always is.

He takes one taste after another, feeling the cold liquid slip down his throat and warm him to his core. It’s sweeter than any heroin, and rocks him harder than cocaine. Hell-- it’s better than that speedball that nearly killed him last winter, the one that led him to her door. He can’t believe he’s missed out on it, can’t believe she’s had that power in her all along-- that the woman who got him to stop drugs is the very fix he’s been looking for _all his goddamn life_. 

She has to push him back into his seat. Pull away long enough to lick the wound on her wrist shut. Because he can’t stop drinking, can’t stop tasting it, can’t stop missing it the moment it leaves his mouth. It’s a swirl of ecstasy and agony, and he wants more, more, _more ._

“You can’t have more,” she tells him softly, and he whirls around on her as feral as an animal, “I’m sorry. It was just to stabilize you. You were dying. I didn’t-- I didn’t want you to die.” 

She pulls out of the parking lot and onto the road, and he stares at her face as she drives. His head feels clear, sharp, and ready to shatter like glass. The clarity is almost painful, actually, and as the blood enters his system he feels himself becoming more and more aware of his surroundings. More and more _alive_.

The hum of the engine, the roar of the wind as it batters the car, the breath in his throat, the pounding of his feeble heart. His skin against skin against cloth against the leather seats-- the divides between them so stark it’s agonizing. He wants to tear off his layers and stand out in the cold, feel the wind greet him like all those times he stood on the precipice and threatened to fall. His legs begin to shake, thumping the floorboards like a jackrabbit, like the prey animal he always was-- 

He does not see the eighteen-wheeler’s headlights through his side of the car. Not until they are blasting through the window like the light of heaven. Not until the light reflects off Cande’s brown eye, a beacon, showing tints of orange and red in its path. 

Her head turns, and she looks at him….

Boom. 

Stars.

* * *

He wakes up on the road. 

The car is flipped upside down, and he lays halfway out of it, face to the sky. He can almost see the stars past the light pollution, but thinks maybe they shouldn't wiggle whenever he blinks.

There's glass all around him, glittering in the flicker of emergency lights, and it crunches like the snow as people step through it. They wave flashlights and pick over the debris, but none seem to notice he's awake. There's comm chatter and police sirens and the sounds of machinery sawing away at metal. He glances over and sees a great big machine wrenching open the door where Cande is supposed to be.

It takes him a moment, but he realizes he can't move his legs very well, and for a hot minute he's afraid he can't feel them at all. But it's just pain. Everything is just pain, pain that upends his sense of reality and makes the world blur at the edges. Pain that makes everything stand out with such stark clarity, he thinks at any other moment he must be numb. And, as he looks down, he sees a much bigger problem is at hand: 

Shards of glass sticking out of his torso. Blood seeping out of his wounds, spilling onto the street. One shard in particular sits in the center of his chest and twitches with the beating of his heart.

Adriel takes one rattling breath--

* * *

The next time Adriel wakes up, it's in a sterile white room with monitors beeping away beside him. They're slow and barely heard over the echo of the TV in the corner, the clash of rhythms slowly giving him a headache. His mouth is dry. His body feels weak, stopped up. He wonders if, maybe, this is all a part of some bad dream.

But, as he looks around the room, he recognizes it as an ICU. Been in one too many times after too many overdoses to not recognize the bright lights and sharp twang of sanitizer. Even the stiff sheets and bone-breaking cold is hauntingly familiar, like coming back to a childhood home after far too many years away. Empty of anything that was once comfortable, echoing with a loneliness he can barely name. 

He doesn’t want to be here. He doesn’t know how long he’s been here. The clock on the wall is broken and tells him nothing-- the incessant ticking of the second-hand making the jitters in his system ring truer and truer with each tick-tick-tick--

A nurse walks into the room and stops in her tracks. He can read her thoughts plainly on her face: _Holy shit, you’re awake!_

He’s just as surprised as she is, especially when he lifts himself off the bed long enough to look at himself. Bandages, all the way down. And in the reflection of the window, he sees the cuts and bruises on his face make him look like a walking corpse. He looks back to the nurse. 

“How do I get outta here?”

They don’t want to let him leave, of course. Apparently, he was almost DOA. Touch and go on the way there, had to do some surgery to clear his chest of all the glass. No idea how he made it, must have been a miracle.

A miracle. Right. He has a better idea of what happened. 

And he-- he doesn’t like it. 

They don’t know where Cande is. No one else was in the car with him, and when he asked if anyone came to visit, they have no one on the record. Among the suspicious bundle of things in the visitor’s chair, however, is a note written in a familiar script. 

Today's date. A street address. A license plate number. _'Before sunrise.'_

It’s her. He knows it’s her. She’s talented like that, and for a second his heart feels full. But there is only so much time to escape and follow after Cande. He has no doubt she’d wait for him if she could, but something tells him that if all she left is a note, then waiting isn’t an option. 

He tucks the note into one of the grippy socks the hospital gave him, and bides his time, looking for an opening. 

He’ll get out. He’ll get to her. He has to. 

There is no other option.

* * *

Turns out escaping a hospital isn’t as easy as it sounds, because he fucks it up horrifically. 

_Twice._

The first time he just tries to walk out. The nurses nearly tackle him the moment he disconnects from all the machinery. As soon as he dodges past them, a security guard takes him down and threatens to call the cops. He only just barely worms his way out of being handcuffed to the bed. It really is like ODing all over again. 

The second time, he has to be smarter. Slips his shoes on and hides them under the covers. Prepares his route. He tries figuring out the patrols, knowing when to disconnect the machines, when to slip past the guards….

But, ultimately, decides ‘fuck that,’ and takes a chair to the window.

Perks of being on the bottom floor, he guesses. 

He’s halfway out the window, tennis shoes scraping against rocks and broken glass, when the nurses come rushing in, sedatives at the ready. Trying to get his ass back into bed. He declines, hopping over the flowerbed and through the bushes, running as fast as his wounds will allow him.

It’s not very fast, as it turns out. But he’s got a head start and his pants on, so he counts it as a win as he rushes out into the parking lot and down the street. He skids to a stop around the corner, discarding the paper gown they’d forced on him and squeezing into his coat as gently as he can. It’s hard work. He can feel the stitches holding his chest together loosen as he does it. 

Eventually, Adriel gets to another parking lot, stopping just long enough to slip the note from his sock. He doesn’t know what time it is or how long he has, but he knows well enough that this is his last chance to get out of Seattle. They’ll need supplies. They’ll need _cash_. 

And he knows where to get it. 

The street signs tell him he’s a good ways away from his neighborhood, much further than he wants to walk in this state. But, fuck, he has no money for a cab in this state. He’s pretty sure the hospital still has his wallet-- he pats himself down just in case. 

Yep.

Fuck.

Walking it is. 

He gets started, pulling into alleyways and other thoroughfares to stay off the main streets. By the time he makes it to the complex, he’s sore and aching from the strain. He nearly falls over once he gets inside the building and elects to take the elevator instead of the stairs. Inside, the schizophrenic from 304 sits in her wheelchair, looking him over with a click of her tongue.

“You ought to know better than to run, boy,” she whispers to him as they pass each other, and he feels something strange worm into his brain, “Catch the turtle, spurn the hare, a lost little animal caught in the snare. Alone, alone, _alone._ There’s nothing but death awaiting you.”

The doors close behind her. He stands in the center of the elevator, feeling his head ache and breathing hitch. He blinks at the light in the elevator, too dim and too bright at the same time, the shadows in the corner glancing among themselves while he stands blinded. Noise gathers at the base of his skull like a drill bit, pressing deeper and deeper, spinning louder and louder, _piercing, delving--_

A wolf stands at the door between life and death, speaking through two mouths, asking with two tongues. _Why are you here? What do you want?_ Its teeth are yellow and sharp, its mouth blackened with blood. _Are you certain? Are you sure?_ It licks its lips, TV static spilling to the floor. 

_Friend or foe? Who are they waiting for?_

The door opens just a crack.

He blinks and is inside his apartment. It’s stripped to pieces, furniture overturned and ripped apart. His mattress has been thrown off the boxspring, his stash and kit on full display in the hollowed out middle. He grabs it without thinking, stuffing it into the duffle bag he has next to his broken IKEA wardrobe. 

Whatever the fuck just happened, he can parse it out later. The clock by his bed blinks out a solid 4 AM, and it’s time to _go_. 

He’s too late, however. There are sirens outside his apartment, and he sees the lights through the grime on his window. The red and blue reflect off the snow, making him dizzy, and through the haze of panic and confusion, he knows just who that’s for. 

Adriel opens the window and heads for the fire escape. He manages to make it down a few stories as stealthily as possible, before he releases the ladder and realizes it’s a good ten feet too short for him to drop from in this state. At any other time, he’d have been able to make it through sheer grit alone, but now? Now, he's liable to break open his stitches if he so much as moves wrong. 

He turns to climb back up. The bag on his shoulder shifts his weight, though, and he stumbles back a bit onto a patch of ice covering the grating. The snow slicked soles of his high-tops provide no traction, and he tumbles back--

And cracks against a closed dumpster, barely cushioned by the meager clothes in his duffle. He feels one of the stitches burst and barely has the restraint not to scream. He rolls over, off the dumpster and onto the ground, trying to get his bearings. A police officer rounds the corner, and he knows he has to run.

And he does. Turning corners and skidding into traffic, his coat torn open and blood slick against his skin. The streets are largely empty of people, making him feel like a rat lost in a maze. He feels his vitality leave him, draining with each drop, and he’s just so _hungry--_ but if he doesn’t get out of here--

The sky above him, between the cloudbreaks and the smog, is a distinct purple-blue that comes from early morning. The sun will rise soon, and if he is what he thinks he is? If this isn’t a dream he’s having trouble waking up from? It won’t matter how much he’s starving, he’ll be ashes with the first ray of sunlight. 

The officer catches up to him in no time, however, and tackles him to the ground. Adriel’s in handcuffs before he knows it, wrists locked behind him and knee to his back. Blood seeps out of his coat and onto the street. He tries to struggle, but gets his head slammed into the pavement for the trouble.

Boom.

Stars.

When next he wakes, he's handcuffed to a bed with a steady blood transfusion, being interrogated by the cops and social workers alike. They explain it to him slowly, like talking to a child. He has heroin on him. 5k in cash. A rap sheet as long as he is tall. At best, he goes to an intensive care facility, thanks to a new program that has opened up in Seattle for people like him. People who need help kicking bad habits, letting things go. They’ll put a good word in for him. Let him get the help he needs. They just need a few names….

He barely hears them. All he sees is the clock, reading off a steady 6:23 AM. 

She’s left. He feels it in his feeble heart. Gone off with Lara and whoever else she has tagging along. She isn’t the type to just up and leave without someone suggesting it first, a homebody first and foremost. But she wouldn’t stick around if she didn’t have to, and the ‘tomorrow’ she talked about has come and gone. 

Sunlight spills through the window, bathing the room in its winter glow. Adriel doesn’t know for sure if he’s a vampire or not, but the blood in his body curdles and coils, sluggish and slow as the sun rises over the East. In seconds, he’ll be ash, unless something has gone horribly wrong.

He closes his eyes and listens to the incessant tick-tick-tick of the nails being driven into his coffin.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adriel gets some help, meets new people, and says 'fuck it.'

The rehab clinic’s not so bad, really. 

It’s a place to piss, a place to watch TV, and a place to sleep during the day. Worst thing he can say about it is that there’s no privacy and they won’t let him leave. It’s been-- what, four years? Five?-- and still no word on whether he’ll be discharged anytime soon. One of those long term places where his therapist gets the final say, and he’d bet  _ money  _ his own personal shithead is certain he was on a new fix. 

_ Not wrong, really,  _ Adriel thinks as he rips open the syringe package and sticks the warmed up blood pack. He taps the syringe and squirts out the little bit of air still left in it, settling the needle into the crook of his arm-- as easy as breathing. Just a pinch, and he flexes a bit. Warmth settles in his core, gets his heart pumping to a regular rhythm. 

It circulates his system, hitting his brain at just the right moment. Fatigue washes away, like he’s come up for air after nearly drowning, and it’s  _ good _ . It’s so much better than anything else he’s ever had. His body warms and tingles and gets back to ‘normal,’ almost like he’s human again.

He wouldn’t call it an addiction so much as a necessity, though. Food doesn’t stick like it used to. Blood’s the only thing that makes him feel full. Keeps him going on even a basic level. Without it, he feels himself begin to wither and slow down. Like someone hit fast forward on the rest of the world while he’s stuck fiddling with the rewind.

So much for being a kickass vampire. 

“Bit risky to inject, ain’t it?” Lucio asks from his bed, sipping blood from his own pack. He’s a scruffy man in his mid-40s, though it’s hard to tell from the ragged jeans and band tees he wears constantly, “You know they check you for track marks. Could end up staying here longer again.”

Adriel huffs a laugh, quiet and bitter, “I had to stay up seven hours for a thirty minute appointment, man. This is faster than drinking it. I’m just trying not to die.”

“Whatevs,” he shrugs, “Just some friendly advice.”

‘Friendly advice’ from Lucio fucking Kimura usually comes at a down payment with twenty percent interest over the next ten years, but Adriel doesn’t say that. He doesn’t say anything. Instead, he drinks the rest of it to avoid any more evidence, and tosses the remains in with Lucio’s stash. 

The guy is mildly famous among those in the facility. He has a particular talent for getting things past the doctors and therapists and making the evidence of that stuff disappear. Beer, cigarettes, and other contraband flow from his hands like water-- just as easily as favors and promises flow from his lips-- but it’s the blood that matters to Adriel. It’s pretty much  _ all  _ that matters these days. 

God, when was the last time he was outside?

“You got that look on your face,” Lucio interrupts his thoughts, kicking back onto his bed and resting his head in his hands, “What’s up? What’s got ya thinkin’, bud?”

Adriel shifts, sitting cross legged on his bed and picking at the little plastic grips at the bottoms of his socks. They won’t let him wear shoes in this place. Afraid he might strangle someone with them, he guesses. Or strangle himself.

Lucio waits patiently for him. Too patiently, like he already knows what he’s going to ask, but he asks it anyways-- “Why’d you help me?”

And the man has the gall to laugh. “What, am I that much of a bastard I can’t just help someone?” Lucio asks, smiling toothily, fangs on display. It takes all of Adriel’s self control not to respond with a simple  _ ‘yes.’  _ But that’d be a bit rude, even for him.

“You’ve been helping me for years now, man,” Adriel says instead, “So, why? It won’t get any easier. It’s just gonna get worse. Why help me at all?” 

Lucio’s grin fades to a thoughtful smirk. He shrugs again, something unreadable locked behind his eyes. “Does it matter?”

Adriel guesses it doesn’t. But, still, he can’t shake the itch in the back of his head. Like this will turn into one big debt that never ends, unpayable in its sheer immensity. His hands never washed clean of the literal blood he owes to this guy who took him under his wing when he almost starved to death. 

So, he sighs and runs his hands through his hair, adjusting the beanie on his head. “What time is it?”

“Around 8 PM or so, why?” 

“Was gonna head to the commons and watch TV or somethin’, I dunno,” he shrugs, and stands to stretch, “You wanna come with? Paige’s probably up.”

“Oh, Paige’s definitely up, I stopped by her room on my way here,” Lucio chuckles, “Looked like she was gettin’ ready to argue with the new interns about her arms again. Keep tellin’ her to just lean into it, but she’s more keen on stayin’ honest, I guess. But, nah, I'll stay here.”

Adriel nods, heading out of his room to check the hallways. No orderlies, thank fuck. He’s not sure he can handle any checks right now while his arm heals. Last thing he needs is questions about the little pinpricks in his arms, especially with Lucio there to squeeze another little debt out of him by making the orderlies go away. 

Still, aside from the tiny annoyances, the clinic isn’t a bad place. It’s structured rather simply out of a small apartment complex and office building, merging the two rather seamlessly into an in-patient facility. The water is hot, food tastes like cardboard, and he’s bound by law to stay here instead of going to jail, so-- not too bad. His biggest complaint is that he has to go all the way down to the ground floor entrance just to reach the commons. 

That’s where the newcomers are. Empty eyed and listless, sitting in the little plastic chairs at literal rock bottom. Most of the time, they’re so full of shame they can’t even look at him. Other times, they sit there with their heads held high in pure defiance, glaring at everyone who comes through the door. It’s even worse when they’re pretty much kids, clearly terrified and missing home.

This time, however, the room is largely empty, save for Nurse Higgins, the intake lady. He creeps past, trying not to bother the woman. She could chokeslam him if she wanted to, and he’d rather not piss her off tonight by trying to make chitchat. 

The commons are largely empty of the day crowd, most of whom have finished their nightly meds and either gone to sleep or hung out in their rooms. A few nighthawks are scattered around the room, either watching the TV or reading from their sparse shelf of books-- most of which were ‘donated’ by previous forgetful tenants. Paige is curled up on a ratty couch against the back wall, picking holes into the fabric of the couch again. 

She’s a small girl, looking about late teens, early twenties. She wears the same black leggings and baggy Joy Division tee just about every day, with a variety of grungy striped undershirts to hide the scars on her arms. Track marks mostly, but he’s noted a few thin lines going down her wrists the few times he’s seen them bare. 

“Adriel,” she calls, breaking him out of his thoughts, “You’re awake?”

He snorts, “You know I can’t sleep when the sun goes down. Whatcha up to?” 

She shrugs before lolling her head back onto the couch. She hasn’t stopped picking at the fabric, slowly unraveling the threads there. Her sharp teeth flash a little in the light as she speaks, low and slow. “Waiting on Linus.”

Adriel glances over to the pudgy, middle aged man currently glued to the TV. He leans, trying to catch sight of what he’s watching-- Ancient Aliens. Linus’ favorite. 

“You  _ do  _ know there’s an marathon goin’ on today, right?” he asks Paige.

She looks at him, face slowly going sour. “Oh. Fuck.”

He takes a seat next to her as she sulks, nudging her with his elbow, “Hey, maybe they’ll get it right this time. Maybe there really are aliens out there building pyramids and shit, y’know? Bet you they made the Space Needle.”

She snorts a little bitterly, tucking her feet underneath her as she leans against the arm of the couch. She looks tired in the cool glow of fluorescent lights. She always looks so tired. Adriel is beginning to wonder if maybe it’s contagious, because he’s beginning to notice the dark smudges under his eyes whenever he wakes up. 

They sit like that for a while, just letting the TV drown out any need for conversation. They don’t talk much, but, generally, they don’t need to. It’s the one thing he can appreciate about this place: some people know how to shut up and turn their brains off. 

“Adriel.”

He blinks and looks up from the TV. Nurse Higgins is standing at the doorway, clipboard in hand and a grim look twisting her lips. 

“Yeah?”

“You do your nightly checks?” she asks, eyes pinning him to the couch like a butterfly in one of those damn boxes. She knows he hasn’t. 

Fuck.

“Uh--” he swallows, and forces the blood in his veins to shift and swirl. It’s little effort to patch the marks on his arms, but--

Nurse Higgins steps into the room and her hawk eyes immediately zero in on the crook of his arm, looking for evidence. “Stand up,” she demands, “Arms out.”

He obeys, letting her push up his sleeves, roll down his collar, and even check his fucking  _ nose  _ for track marks. She won’t find any, not after he roused his blood to patch the little needle pricks, but the effort it took to do it so quickly makes the ache for more even stronger than usual. Still, once she checks all the usual places, she directly into his eyes and--

“I’m putting this down on your file,” she clips severely, and he winces.

“What?  _ Why?” _

“You can’t miss your nightly checks. Failure to report for them goes down on your record. You know the rules, Mr. Ceballos,” she says, pushing her half-moon glasses up her nose. 

He can feel the twinge of a headache creep up his neck, and he scrubs at it in frustration, “But I haven’t--”

“Doesn’t matter. Don’t miss them again.”

She steps away, rubber clogs clopping against the hardwood floor. It takes all of Adriel’s self control not to scream in frustration. Another mark on his record means another therapy appointment, and another therapy appointment means having to talk to that shithead therapist out of making him stay for another year.

Fucking excellent. Just what he wants. Does it matter that he hasn’t had a lick of drugs in his entire stay? No! Because it never mattered-- what matters is that he’s a good little dog who takes his meds, comes when called, and--

He feels a hand grip his shoulder. Paige is there, looking concerned and fearful, and he immediately forces himself to relax.

“Okay?” she asks, voice small, and, shit, he must have scared her. 

“Yeah,” he lies through a tight smile. It doesn’t work. She looks even more afraid, “I will be, at least.” 

She opens her mouth as though to say something, then closes it and slowly, carefully leads him back to the couch. He plops down with a sigh, counting the cracks in the ceiling and letting the thoughts gather like storm clouds around his head.

He isn’t sure how he’s going to explain missing his nightlies. He needed blood. If he didn’t get it, he would have passed out, and that’d have a whole slew of questions attached to it. He’s not sure how ‘human’ he is, and at this point he’s a bit afraid to find out. As far as he knows, everything is in working order, but  _ something  _ has to have changed for him to subsist on blood. He’s just not sure what. 

Lucio’s tried to explain it, but he dances around the subject with different terms, just in case someone else is listening, and honestly? Adriel gets the sense that his advice on the matter isn’t free. Whatever the cost of that advice, he’s certain it’s too much for him to pay back anytime soon. Paige is the only other one who knows, and she doesn’t say more than four words at a time.

He wishes he could ask someone else. He wishes he could as  _ Cande _ . But he hasn’t heard any word from her in over a year, and their conversations are too brief and too monitored for him to broach the subject.

Hell, he doesn’t even know where she is. Just that it isn’t Seattle. 

He closes his eyes, and lets out a tiny sigh. He misses her. With a sick twist in his gut and a coldness in his limbs, he misses her. Everything would be a hell of a lot more bearable if he could just see her, but he--

Adriel stands suddenly, and starts marching towards the door. He’s not going to think like that tonight. He’s not going to think at all. He’s going to go upstairs and crawl into bed and pretend to sleep until morning comes, and he finally passes out. 

He makes it about as far as the entrance.

A dark haired man in a slick suit and tie stands in front of Nurse Higgins’ station, head tilted to one side, mumbling something while she stares. She looks like a corpse-- completely unresponsive save for the tears welling in her dead eyes and the drool dribbling down her chin. She reaches for an unlabeled binder beneath her desk and hands it over to the man, jerking and trembling as though something were simply wearing her skin. 

The man waves his hand and she drops to her chair, like a puppet with its strings cut. He moves to sit in the plastic chairs nearby, already flicking through the binder’s contents, when he catches Adriel’s gaze. 

He’s tall, with piercing green eyes barely hidden behind a blocky pair of black glasses. They blink at each other, like two kids caught doing something they shouldn’t, and the man leafs through the binder for a bit before he  _ smiles _ . 

“Hey, there," he says with a smooth, if bland, baritone. It has a lilt to it that makes Adriel squint; he can't quite place what bothers him about it, “How are you doing tonight?”

“I’m good,” Adriel says on reflex. There’s something so  _ off  _ about this man that it makes his skin crawl, but he can’t find it in him to just walk away. “What, uh, are you doin’ here?”

“Oh, I’m not a patient, don’t worry,” the man says as though that were even remotely one of his concerns. He claps the binder shut for a moment and sets it aside, looking Adriel in the eye, “I’m Special Agent Francis Dale Tethers. You can call me Dale, though, everyone does.”

“Oh.” Fuck. He’s with the feds. Adriel could feel his shoulders raise, turtling in on himself. “Uh, cool. Nice to meet you.”

“We’re not formally introduced yet, though, are we?” he asks calmly, that easy smile still on his face, “What’s your name, loverboy?”

Loverboy? 

“Adriel Ceballos,” he says without really meaning to, as though the words were plucked from his mouth by greedy hands. Dale’s smile widens the tiniest bit, flashing all too white teeth. Adriel suppresses a wince. 

“Well, Mr. Ceballos, it’s interesting that we should meet like this,” he says pleasantly, taking the binder and flicking through it again, “All things considered, you might call something like this fate-- if you believe in such a thing. Do you believe in fate, Mr. Ceballos?” 

Adriel shifts a little awkwardly, feeling a bit like a cornered animal. Was this guy flirting with him? Or about to scramble his brain like Nurse Higgins? “Uh, I dunno. Haven’t really thought about it much.”

“Can’t say I blame you. Fate’s a hard thing to grapple with,” Dale says, stopping on a particular page and tapping his finger against it. “But if you come to understand how it works, you may find it rather freeing. For example-- I think we were fated to meet today.”

Yeup. Flirting. He isn’t really down to clown with federal agents if he can help it, so he slowly starts to inch towards the stairs.

“Now, you might be thinking, ‘how? Why? What do you mean, Dale?’ Well, I mean that all things come as natural consequences of actions and inactions,” the fed is  _ still talking _ , even after Adriel manages to get a foot on the bottom step, “It’s quite simple, really. I mean, did you ever expect to meet a fellow vampire here? Tonight?”

Adriel freezes. And looks at him.

Dale grins, flashing a pair of sharp canines. “All things come as a consequence of other things, until they are inescapable. Paths seem parallel-- until they suddenly cross. That’s fate.”

“What do you want?” Adriel demands without any heat. It’s closer to a plea than anything, but he’s not here to fuck around when it comes to unknowns. He knows from experience just how dangerous they can be. 

“From you? Nothing much,” Dale says, turning his attention back to the binder in his lap, “Just wondering how many of our kind are in this clinic, or if you’re the only one. Care to share?”

“Why should I?” he asks, biding his time a bit. He doesn’t know how strong this guy is, but maybe Paige could--

“I’m not your enemy here, loverboy,” Dale says simply, taking a pen from his pocket to circle things on the page, “I’d like to be a friend, in fact. But friends have to get to know each other, don’t they? So, why don’t you tell me how many kindred there are?” 

Adriel stands on the bottom step and weighs his options.

He bites his lip, and takes a chance.

“Three, including me,” he answers honestly, “But they haven’t done anything wrong, so….”

The last part’s a lie so boldfaced, he’s surprised he doesn’t burst into flames just saying it. Nurses go missing every couple of months, never to be seen again. At first, he didn’t think about it too much; people stop showing up to work sometimes, big deal. But then he noticed the way Paige would go catatonic for a little while afterwards-- staring off into space and refusing to talk to anyone. And when he asked Lucio about it, the man just laughed.

_ ‘Those shark teeth aren’t just for show, kid.’ _

“What clans?” 

“Dunno,” he shrugs, rubbing his neck a bit, “I had it explained to me once, but only once. I don’t really remember what the others are. It just… doesn’t come up much.”

Dale stops to twirl his pen in his fingers, jittering his leg a bit as he looks Adriel over. The gears are turning behind his eyes, clearly processing all this information and so much more. He tucks the pen away, and pulls a retro-style tape recorder out of his pocket to it up to his ear, pressing play.

Whatever’s on that tape, Adriel can’t understand it. It sounds like whitenoise mixed with the distant roar of traffic and city life, playing just loud enough for him to hear it across the room. Still, something slithers underneath, and he gets that sense of  _ offness  _ again, a twitch in the back of his brain. It’s probably a trick of the ear, but he almost hears-- 

Dale stops the recording, stands, and smiles. “Sorry for bothering you tonight, Mr. Adriel. Just wanted to stay updated on the situation here. Thanks for being helpful; I’ll see you another time.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck-- 

“Are you Camarilla?” Adriel asks, panicking, “Please, don’t tell them we’re here. We’re just-- we’re not hurting them--”

Dale actually laughs. It’s a casual, throaty chuckle that sets Adriel’s teeth on edge. “No, I’m not with them. I’m more of an independent, personally. Was just looking for a bite tonight, but I don’t wanna step on anyone’s toes. You’ve nothing to fear from me.”

Adriel looks over to Nurse Higgins, still slumped over in her chair and drooling. “You sure?”

“Oh, that?” Dale tucks the binder under his arm and pushes his glasses up his nose, “A necessary evil, I guess. She’ll be fine, probably. I don’t think I scrambled her brain that hard.” 

Necessary evils. Adriel had a feeling guys like this did a lot of those. 

“Tell you what, though,” Dale says, reaching into his coat pocket. Adriel tenses, expecting a gun, but is instead greeted with an off-white business card, “If you need anything, just gimme a call. Independents ought to look out for each other, yeah?”

Adriel takes it carefully, as though it’s ready to bite him. He looks it over, seeing only  _ FRANCIS DALE TETHERS _ on one side and a Seattle number on the other. 

“See you around, loverboy,” Dale says, before  _ finally  _ taking his leave. 

Adriel hopes to never see him again. 

* * *

Adriel  _ does  _ see Dale again, because life isn’t fair and has it out for him in particular. He drops by every so often on an ‘investigation’ of some sort, asking questions and being friendly in ways that Adriel kind of hates. Aside from scaring the piss out of Nurse Higgins, though, he doesn’t do anything  _ wrong, _ per se. Over time, he just becomes a part of life. 

Months pass without much incident. People in the clinic come and go, moving like the tides. He starts to take up some of Lucio’s slack in dealing with newcomers-- especially the ones stuck on opioids. He might not be able to get high the same way he used to, but he knows the tremors and shocks of withdrawal better than anyone. 

It’s through his ‘charity work’ (as Lucio calls it) that he meets Clay. A guy in his late thirties, he’s fresh out of the hospital by the time they meet, dressed like an 80s dad and head freshly shaved from a few brain surgeries. 

Some idiot doctor put him on  _ Vicodin  _ of all things for chronic migraines after a brain injury, turning a jovial local boxing champion into another drug addict in need. They end up across the hall from each other. He’s not an ass, at least, and that much Adriel can appreciate. 

Dale and Clay eventually meet, though, and-- because life isn’t fair-- they quickly become acquaintances. Dale turns out to be very interested in the anatomy of Clay’s damaged brain, and Clay’s all too happy to vent to someone who knows enough about that stuff to not get lost five minutes in. He’s surprisingly cheerful about it, all things considered. It makes Adriel wonder why he doesn’t seem to get many visitors. 

He doesn’t wonder for long. 

It’s one of those nights where he and Paige are huddled up on the couch, getting through another true crime show that threatens to rot their brains. He’s hearing about yet another woman butchering her husband over an affair, when Clay stumbles into the room, looking way more jumpy than usual. 

“Hey, man,” he calls out, waving the guy over. Clay flinches, and that’s enough to give Adriel pause. “You alright?”

Clay doesn’t respond. His eyes are empty and glazed over, rolling around in his head as they roam around the room. Adriel stands and takes a single step towards him, only for the man to startle like a wild animal. He stumbles, slamming into a bookshelf when scampering back, and falls flat on his ass. 

“Jesus, dude, you okay!?” Adriel asks, approaching slowly while Clay rolls over on the floor-- leaping up to try and sprint out the room. It takes all of Adriel’s speed to catch up with him, gripping his shoulder with a gentle hand--

Only to get decked right in the chin. 

_ Lights out.  _

* * *

As it turns out, Clay’s history as a boxer was a bit of a lie. 

Adriel finds out the majority of it from the in-clinic infirmary, nursing his nearly broken jaw. Underground MMA rings, fight clubs, etcetera-- that was Clay’s scene, and it was an ugly one. One bad fight gave him a dent in his head, brain damage for life, and access to the tainted pain killers that caused this whole debacle.

He’s sorry, of course, after the come down. Promises he won’t do it again. Gets another six months added to his clinic time and nightly piss checks for the next several weeks. Adriel feels for the guy and knows from the ‘kicked puppy’ look on his face that something like this has happened before. 

So, Adriel forgives him. It’s not the first time someone’s decked him on a bad trip, though it takes a lot longer than he’d like to get his jaw back in place. He’s glad he doesn’t really have to chew when it comes to drinking blood. 

Six months pass, and Clay is eventually clean. He promises to visit.

Adriel’s surprised to find that he keeps his promise, returning with one of his old fighting buddies in tow. He’s a massive, dirty blonde wall of a man with a ponytail and a slight french accent named Hercule Zephyr DeFontaine-- or, ‘Just Zeph’-- and apparently is both the reason for Clay’s injury  _ and  _ his sobriety buddy.

Adriel doesn’t comment on the irony of that. He also doesn’t comment on the fact that Zeph is, well, a vampire, and a really fucking intimidating one at that. Adriel can feel it in his bones the moment he sees him, that same sense of  _ ‘run, run, run _ ’ he got with Dale when they first met, but a thousand times louder. It becomes apparent that not only does Clay  _ know  _ about the vampirism, he doesn’t see it as a big deal. 

So, Adriel takes a chance. 

“I’m one, too, you know,” he tells them while they’re relaxing in the common room, watching Legally Blonde on the TV. 

“One what?” Clay asks, chin nestled in his hand. He seems to love the flick, while Zeph stares into space, fists clenched. Subtlety isn’t their strong suit, Adriel guesses.

“I’m like Zeph,” he tries.

“You fight?” Zeph looks at him, brow raised. It’s the most emotion he’s seen from the guy in the time he’s known him, but being in his direct line of sight makes his heart stop. 

“N-- No, I--” and Zeph immediately looks away, disinterested. Adriel purses his lips and rethinks his approach. “I drink.”

“Thought you were in here for heroin?” Clay asks, eyes still glued to the screen. 

“I am, but I don’t-- not, like, alcohol or anything.”

“Yeah?” Zeph is staring at the wall now. He yawns, even though he doesn’t need to breathe, “Interesting.”

Adriel sighs and rubs his temple, already frustrated. Lucio told him to be careful with what words he uses, but he has no idea how old of a vampire Zeph is-- so--

“Alright, listen, I’m new to this kind of thing so, just… bear with me, but--” he breathes, running a hand through his hair and displacing his beanie, “I’m a-- lick.”

Zeph suddenly leans back on the couch, looking at him from behind Clay’s head. He gives him an elevator stare, brows quirked, like he didn’t quite hear him. “A  _ lick?” _

Clay is unphased, still watching the movie, “No one cares if you’re gay, Adriel.” 

_ “I’m not gay!” _ he interjects, “For fuck’s sake, I’m trying to tell you--”

“You’re not?” And Clay looks at him, confused, like he just told him the grass was purple and the sky was orange, “Thought you were.”

“Why would I be gay?”

“Why is anyone gay?” Zeph asks like the motherfucker that he is.

“Okay, first of all--”

“Some people are just gay, Adriel,” Clay says, “It’s kind of homophobic of you to--”

“I’m literally bisexual. I know that some people are just gay, Jesus fucking Christ-- I’m trying to--”

Paige comes in and sits on the couch next to them, giving a jaunty little wave to them both.

Clay and Zeph wave back, and Adriel grasps at his last straws, “I’m like Paige. Okay?”

“You’re a girl?” Clay perks up, like he suddenly understands everything, “That’s what’s up, be who you wanna--”

“No! I’m a vampire!” he finally spits, grateful that there’s no one else in the room this late at night. They all go silent save for the chatter coming from the TV. He hears Paige sigh behind them. 

Clay’s the first to speak, blinking a little as he says, “Ohhhhhh…. Yeah, I already knew that.”

Adriel’s jaw drops. _ “How!?” _

“Zeph told me.”

“I did,” Zeph confirms.

“How did  _ you  _ know?” 

“Your breath smells like blood sometimes,” Zeph says, casually digging dirt out from under his fingernails, “You really need to brush your teeth.”

He can’t fucking believe this. Adriel flops back onto the couch, hiding his face in his hands, “You could have told me you knew, for fuck’s sake-- totally avoided this dumbass conversation!”

“I thought I did?” Clay looks genuinely confused, turning to Zeph, “Did I tell him?”

Zeph, for his part, just shrugs and turns back to the movie. Adriel feels something in his brain break a little, especially as he turns to look at Paige in exasperation, and all she does is smile like it’s the funniest thing she’s seen all week. She pats his back, and he has to remind himself that she’s a vampire who can, and will, eat him if she chooses to do so.

“I think I hate you guys,” he sighs, sinking deeper into the couch, “This might be what finally makes me snap. I might start eating paint chips. Or walk out into traffic.”

“Love you too, Adriel,” Paige says her sharp teeth peeking past her lips as she grins. 

All he can do is sulk and watch Elle Woods dominate the courtroom once again.

* * *

Time passes in a crawl. His tally of days hits its 6th year, and he finally gets the call. They’re letting him go outpatient. He’s got therapy appointments, and an outpatient facility to stay in for a month or two, but he’s finally, finally free. 

It’s around that point that he gets one of those rare calls from Cande. She can’t tell him where she is, what she’s doing, or why-- but she was thinking of him. Wondering how he was doing. Wondering if he’s okay. Her voice still has that deep, throaty tone, gentle as a whisper when talking to him.

He breaks down crying over the phone. All the anger and fear he felt over the years since her departure bubbles up into a moment of hatred so intense it breaks his heart. He doesn’t know what to say, so he listens to her console him over the phone, wishing she was there to hold him like she used to while simultaneously wanting to tear her apart. He wants to scream at her. He wants to smash the phone into the wall and take her with it. He'd kill her and himself if he could.

He misses her so badly, it's agony.

He, eventually, tells her he has a new fix. It’s just like hers, though he has some trouble getting it. She seems confused at first, and runs out of call time before he can elaborate further, but he hopes she gets it. He hopes she understands. She was always good at that. 

The clinic releases him with all his belongings, including a thin stack of letters he never got to read. Aside from a few unsigned postcards (Cande’s doing, no doubt) they’re almost all from Elaine, his sibling. Questions about how he’s doing, if he’s going to be okay, peppered with a few comments of how proud they are that he’s finally getting help. They don’t update him much on what’s happening on their end-- the most he gets is that they’re still out in Boston, working as a welder at some company. 

No letters from his mother and father, or any other family for that matter. Just Elaine, and it’s the most he’s heard from them in a decade. 

He asks the nurse why they were kept from him, and the nurse gives him some bullshit answer about screening out bad influences. Cande and Elaine were unknown variables, so phone calls and letters and other forms of contact had to be restricted. He almost laughs in the woman’s face, giving her a venomous smile. 

Bad influences. Unknown variables. Right. Fucking assholes.

Still, he does his best to let it go. He stays at the halfway house while he gets his life back together, looking for jobs here and there that’ll take him with a six year gap between jobs. It’s hard work, with most places not even answering back, and the few interviews he gets going poorly as soon as they ask about the gap. Even his lies about it fall flat-- claiming it was a medical issue due to a car wreck, which lasts about as long as it takes for them to do a background check and find his history with heroin. 

His supply of blood is getting low. He knows where to get it-- thank God-- but finding ways to pay for his new habit is getting harder and harder. Despite the strain, he promises himself he’ll write back to Elaine at some point, even gets his letter ready with questions on how they’re doing and if things are alright with them. He gathers it up with his resumes, and it’s on his way to the postbox that he bumps into  _ him. _

Francis Dale Tethers, waiting in front of his building with his recorder up to his ear. He has an uncanny ability to know when and where Adriel is going to be, and-- if he were a mite more paranoid-- he might suspect it’s due to that damn recorder he keeps with him at all times. He swears he hears something come from the silence from time to time, whispers he can barely hear.

Dale looks at him, clicking the recorder off with a smile, “Hey, there, loverboy. How’ve you been?”

Adriel rolls his eyes and barely holds back a sigh. He drops the stack of mail into the postbox, slamming the lid shut with a grunt to prove his point.

Dale, for his part, simply raises a brow and tilts his head, “That bad, huh?”

Adriel wants to bite the guy’s head off. He’s really not in the mood for his smarmy bullshit, especially after the rough few months he’s had, but finds it in him to reply: “Worse.”

Dale shakes his head, pushing off the pole he’s leaning against and sauntering over to lean against the postbox. “Well, what if I have an offer for you? Would you be interested?” 

“Depends on the offer,” Adriel says largely on reflex. He doesn’t have much interest in what Dale has to say, already turning to head back into the halfway house--

“How about a way to get your new fix settled, hm?” Dale suggests, not moving from his spot on the postbox, “And get you out of this dump before they can kick you out. You’re running out of time to find a place, aren’t you?”

That’s enough to make him pause. He turns to look back at him, feeling a wriggle of irritation at the small smile on the man’s face. “And? What about it?”

“What if I had a place for you to stay? A… coterie to look out for you?” Dale steps close to whisper, placing a hand on Adriel’s shoulder, “I’ve gathered some like-minded individuals. I’d be glad to have you aboard, as well.” 

Adriel chews his lip, thinking, eyes fixed on the hand on his shoulder. He looks back to Dale, “What kind of place?”

“My RV,” Dale says simply, nodding his head in the direction of the vehicle. It’s a bit of a behemoth, but clearly intended for one or two people, max. He notes the lack of windows on the thing, and nods. 

“How many of us?” he asks, shrugging the hand off his shoulder, “‘cuz ain’t a coterie, like, more than two people?”

“Usually,” Dale says and pulls back to lean against the postbox again, arms crossed, “But-- including you and me? Five people. Zeph and his friend are tagging along, and Clay’s driving.”

Adriel snorts. Five people in that fucking RV? He has to be joking.

“I’m not joking,” Dale says, reading his damn mind, “The four of us, plus Clay. We drive around the city, we pick up jobs here and there, and we stay off people’s radars.”

They’re both silent for a moment, the echo of the greater city area making the edge of silence even sharper than before. He looks at the other man, unconvinced, shifting from foot to foot in nervous habit. 

“You know it’s a death sentence to be a thin-blood in Seattle,” Dale says, nailing the point further home, “But you have skills. Useful skills-- and so do we. We can take care of each other. What do you say?”

What  _ does  _ he say? 

Adriel weighs his options for a moment. He wants to spit a firm ‘no’ directly into this guy’s face, but he’s not stupid. Lucio’s still in the clinic. Paige hasn’t contacted him beyond a simple ‘hi’ since they left. He knows he’s only made it this far thanks to the clinic and being nigh indistinguishable from a human-- but that has its own problems. He’s running out of options and the walls will be closing in  _ real  _ soon….

“Fuck,” he groans, scrubbing his fingers through his hair, “ _ Fine. _ I’ll join your little group of road rejects. But, I swear to God, man, if you make me do some bullshit….”

Dale grins boyishly, knowing he’s won. “No bullshit here, loverboy. Grab your things. The ‘road rejects’ are officially in business.” 

“What--” Adriel starts,  _ “Now!?” _

“Do you have anything better to do?” Dale asks. 

And, fuck it, he has a point. So, Adriel gathers his things. Dale follows him in, smoothing out the paperwork process with his badge and mind fuckery. It takes just long enough to make him rethink the whole thing twice over, before deciding that if Dale tries anything stupid then he can just cut and run. 

By the time they get outside, it’s getting close to midnight. The February air is bitter against his face, but he feels refreshed regardless. He’s finally out. Sort of-- still has therapy appointments to attend and such, but he can handle those a lot better than people give him credit for. 

He and Dale cross the street, clamoring into the RV without much fanfare. Clay’s sitting in the driver’s seat with Zeph on the little couch-- and a woman emerges from the bathroom.

Adriel’s struck by how gorgeous she is. She’s built like a willow tree; brown, long and lean, with straight black hair splayed out around her. She, and the others, turn to look at him as they walk in, and he finds himself feeling strangely shy.

Dale picks up the slack. “Everyone, this is Adriel. Adriel, you know everyone else.”

“Uh, I don’t--”

“Pудоволоса!” the woman shrieks in a thick Eastern European accent, scarpering up to him excitedly and taking his hands in hers, “Such bright red hair! Was your mother a witch?” 

Adriel blinks at her, feeling something in him twitch in irritation, “What?” 

“Sorry, forgot you two haven’t met yet--” Dale interjects, smoothly sliding between the two with an open hand, “This is Yeva. She’s-- well, she’s basically Amish. Whole family’s, uhhh… what was it again?”

“Revenants!” she states proudly, turning his hands over and inspecting his palms, “I’m the first in a generation to be embraced-- ‘tis a great honor for my family, though I fear it drove my father mad with envy. The Tremere Primogen selected me personally for it, you understand.”

“Uh,” Adriel did not, in fact, understand, glancing between her and Dale. 

“She’s our resident blood witch,” Dale explains, squeezing by to take up the passenger seat, “Who knows, maybe she’ll find a way to make you into a full fledged vampire?”

“You’re a vampire!?” she asks, surprised, gripping his hands tightly, “But you’re so warm! Are you a duskborn? How unfortuitous! Father always said duskborn are harbingers of end times, and should be exterminated!”

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” he coughs, trying to squirm his way out of her grip, "Is-- is that going to be a problem?"

"Oh, no! I have no quarrel with your kind, do not fret. In fact, I find you simply fascinating!" she beams before finally letting him go, "You're so close to the human form… do you even have fangs?" 

"No," he answers awkwardly.

"Incredible!"

"Are introductions out of the way?" Clay asks from the driver's seat, drumming the wheel a bit, "We should really get going, and you're gonna wanna sit down for when I start this baby up." 

Yeva hops over to the bed in the back and plops down, patting the space next to her for him to sit. He regrets taking it the moment he does-- she bombards him with chatter about duskborn physiology. Asks some wildly inappropriate questions about his anatomy. Calls him a few things he's pretty sure are slurs. 

All in all, not the worst introduction he's had. At least she seems less malicious than Dale did when they first met, and she talks more than Zeph does in a given moment. It helps that she's pretty and at least half as weird as the rest of their little gang.

Still, as he flops back onto the bed and Clay starts the RV, he can't help but feel this is going to be the start of something absolutely…

_ "By the way, is it true you're a sodomite?" _

Fucking awful. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope this one's okay lol i tried my best.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!


End file.
